Heartwarming tale of crows that bring gifts ends in lawsuit

A magical tale of crows that bring shiny 'gifts' to Seattle eight-year-old Gabi Mann in return for food, took the world by storm back in February.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31604026

It has come down to earth with a bump though, as the Mann family's East Shelby Street neighbors have brought a $200,000 lawsuit against parents Lisa and Gary Mann. The neighbors in the upmarket street allege the large-scale feeding operations have resulted in rats, their cars and homes becoming covered with droppings and waste, and squawking from dawn to dusk.

Despite 51 neighbors signing a petition and months of trying to get city authorities to take action, a lawyer for Matt Ashbach and Christine Yokan says there has been no response from them or the Manns, so her clients have been left with no alternative but to sue. They want the food put out to be limited to a quarter of a pound per day.

“No one wants to be trapped living inside an Alfred Hitchcock horror movie,” said (attorney)Johnsen, who filed the lawsuit in King County Superior Court. “This is a residential neighborhood that was not designed to host a large-scale wildlife feeding operation.”

Click to expand...

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Neighbors-sue-to-stop-Seattle-s-bird-feeding-6438345.php

I can see their point. Feeding the birds sounds good, altruistic, but is it really? Survival of the fittest is nature's law and I believe this type of feeding is doing nothing but weakening the species and making a damned unsafe mess.

My opinion only

No opinion on merits of lawsuit. And yes, we have multiple bird feeders out yr-round, w a few crows or ravens daily, but they bring no gifts, bling, or other swag. On multi-acre lots here, no/virtually no effects on our neighbors, but those Seattle homes seem very close together, imo, per pix in OP's first link.

At link below, poster 'bullifywyfthetank' at 6:31pm, Aug 13 gave reasons re neighbors' poss objections to extensive feeding.
Bird poop "...on your car, your handrail leading up to your house, gumming up your eaves-trough, your back deck where you like to eat outside ...? All over the walk so that when you walk in your house, you are not tracking birdshit inside (even if its less than 5 feet from the door, its now inside and germs will spread from there)."

Crows "sitting on the eave-troughs. Sounds like a minor thing... until the weight of 40 birds bends/warps it, and eventually makes it loose enough that the next storm knocks it down.... repairing it, which can cost a nice chunk of change.... But that’s not where the damage ends, your fascia is prolly wrecked as well, and water has prolly gotten in behind it, meaning ... perfect environment for rot to set in on the edge of your roof."
http://io9.com/seattle-neighbors-are-seriously-pissed-about-those-crow-1723888414

ETA: Pix in OP link & my link show many pigeons feeding and on roofs too.

Sort of off-topic here, but I am a big fan of ravens. They're smarter than most animals -- they have a broad range of vocalizations, can use tools, and can work as teams. I'm not sure if most people are aware, but they survive in the high arctic, and they have some morphological differences there from their southern sisters and brothers. This week I heard one make sounds repeatedly that sounded like a drop of water falling into a pool. Up north, some have learned how to trigger motion-activated lights to provide heat. Some people in remote communities have teams of sled dogs; crows/ravens will team up, and one will taunt the dog to attack, while another will steal the food.

Anyhow, back to the topic -- ravens do not need anyone's help to survive. They're a truly ancient species. I doubt that they're the source of all of the problems cited in the lawsuit. I wouldn't be surprised if pigeons are at least as much to blame, as per al66pine's comment.